After just one day of classes at her summer school of choice, Emily Birkenshaw had already learned a crucial lesson: how to "go floppy" when facing arrest. "You're heavier then, so you can't be carried," she said, with the genuine delight of a new recruit.

The 24-year-old been practising by linking arms with her classmates and singing loudly at a pretend policeman. "It just felt really empowering," she said. "If that happened [in real life] – and I hope it wouldn't – I'd know how to do it without getting hurt."

Birkenshaw, a teaching assistant from York, was one of about 500 who descended on Birmingham at the weekend for the UK Feminista summer school, a two-day event aimed at mobilising feminist activists and training them in the art of campaigning and direct action. With new groups, new campaigns and a set of decades-old beliefs being repackaged for the 21st century, leading figures such as Kat Banyard are claiming a "massive resurgence" in feminism.

If anyone felt intimidated by the "monumental shifts" needed, Banyard, author of The Equality Illusion, told the audience, they needed to look no further than at the mountains moved by their antecedents. "Feminism is nothing but audacious," she said. "It can be done."

For many younger participants of the so-called suffragette school, this was their first real experience of feminism. Birkenshaw signed up because of "a collection of things that have made me go, 'This isn't right!'" One of those things, she said, was walking down the street in "funky dresses and funky tights" and fearing male comments, or worse. "I don't like the fact that as a woman I have to feel scared," she said.

It was this kind of anger that gave rise, earlier this year, to the SlutWalk marches which took place all over the world and saw thousands of people turn out to defend a woman's right to wear what she liked and not feel threatened. Feminists are determined that this will not be the only headline-grabbing event of 2011. Having already carried out protests outside London's new Playboy Club and direct action against lads' magazines in a branch of Tesco, they are planning more.

In London, a UK Feminista activist group is launching in a fortnight. In Bristol, feminists are mobilising against applications for lapdancing clubs, bombarding the city council with objections and highlighting their campaign at the summer school.

Pink Stinks, the campaign team that took on the "pinkification" of the Early Learning Centre, is preparing to take aim at stores that sell makeup for young girls. And, across the country, feminists are dreaming up ways of combatting government cuts to services such as Sure Start childcare centres.

"This is a women's struggle," said Vita, 50, who has been an activist with the movement for more than 20 years. "We know that women are disproportionately affected by the cuts and it's a way of highlighting that."

One idea for action, which came out of a session on International Women's Day, suggested hanging Sure Start books from the Bristol suspension bridge "in order to show what has been suspended by this government". Vita's plan, meanwhile, is for "all-women" action against the cuts.

Men were, however, welcome in other quarters. In a session on Sunday, Matt McCormack Evans of the Anti Porn Men Project rejected any suggestion that men could not be proud members of the movement. "Yes, men can be feminists because it's a movement with an aim and goal," he said.

Jacob Mirzaian, a 22-year-old student at Leeds University, agreed. One of several men to attend the summer school, he said he had been interested in feminism since school.

"I reckon that if there is this fissure between men and women, then that's something that everyone suffers from," he said. The issues being discussed, he said, had affected the women in his life, including his mother: "It's a second-hand experience."

As wide-reaching and forward-looking as the contemporary movement is, however, many younger feminists are aware of the negative connotations from which it still suffers in mainstream society. "I think there's a massive image problem which sometimes is not helped by women who do not represent feminism in the best way, using it as a catchword to seem 'edgy' and 'rebellious'," said Rachelle Hunt, 22, a student at Bradford University, singling out popstars and celebrities for criticism.

Birkenshaw admitted she had feared people would take her for an "angry, man-hating mentalist" when she identified herself as a feminist. But, she said, a moment in a session on Saturday summed up her response to such reactions.

"This woman said: 'When people ask you why you're a feminist, your response should be: 'Well, why aren't you?'" said Birkenshaw. "Why wouldn't I be here? I'm a woman, I care about women's rights, about my own rights; I care about equality, I don't think anyone unequal, so it just makes sense."

The contemporary feminist's in-tray

Commercial sex industry

Pornography; sex trafficking; lap-dancing and strip clubs; magazines featuring semi-nude women: all these raise the ire of many feminists. However some say there should be more support for sex workers, some of whom identify as feminists.

Government cuts

The Fawcett Society has said women are "bearing the brunt" of cuts to benefits and public services. It estimates that by 2015 the average single mother will have lost the equivalent of over one month's income per year.

Abortion

Amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill could see independent groups- including those with an anti-abortion stance- invited to offer counselling in place of providers such as Marie Stopes and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service.

Representation in politics and in the boardroom

Women are outnumbered four to one in parliament (144 MPs to 504), which Banyard says has led to a "democratic deficit". Only one in eight directors of FTSE 100 companies are women.